


When Worlds Collide: Collision

by charming_angel



Series: When Worlds Collide [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Canon Het Relationship, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-27 20:45:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charming_angel/pseuds/charming_angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Castiel tries to open purgatory something goes terribly wrong. Realities start to collide and bleed into each other. In the aftermath Dean, Sam and Castiel make some interesting new friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Supernatural-Verse

**Author's Note:**

> **Series Title :** When Worlds Collide
> 
>  **Story Title :** Collision
> 
>  **Rating :** M
> 
>  **Series Genre :** crossover, sci-fi, fantasy, action, adventure, romance, mostly het
> 
>  **Fandoms :** Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
> 
>  **Characters :** Bobby Singer, Buffy Summers, Castiel, Dawn Summers, Dean Winchester, Faith Lehane, Fred Burkle/Illyria, Sam Winchester, Willow Rosenberg
> 
>  **Pairings :** slight hints at Buffy/Angel & Dawn/Sam
> 
>  **Series Summary :** When Castiel tries to open purgatory something goes terribly wrong. Realities start to collide and bleed into each other. People from different worlds have to start working together to try and save their worlds, but will they manage to undo the damage already done or will they have to learn to live in damaged and chaotic worlds that defy everything they were used to?
> 
>  **Disclaimer :** I don’t own any of the characters or fandoms. I wish I did… *g* I don’t make any money with this! I’m just writing for fun and hope someone else will enjoy it, too.
> 
>  **Spoiler Warnings/Timeline :** all BTVS & ATS seasons (no Comics), season 1-6 of Supernatural
> 
>  **Other Warnings :** Like usually I write from multiple points of view to grant a insight into what different characters are thinking.  
> I’m German and my English isn’t and probably never will be perfect. I hope I don’t make too many mistakes. Feel free to point out errors so I can learn and improve.
> 
> So, here is the first ficlet in my new Crossover Series. The Series will have a lot more fandoms, but most ficlets will only include some of them, and they will probably be able to stand alone. This ficlet will show how it all started. ;-)
> 
> If you want to know more about the Series, fandoms & ships included, have a look at the [Series Introduction](http://sarah-jones.livejournal.com/116685.html), which has links to fandom descriptions and character profiles, info about timelines and other stuff, as well as icons of each character & pairing so that you can see what people look like. Like usually I am also going to include icons (that I made myself) within the fanfics.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to my beta landiana24 on lj for betaing this. :-)

Dean Winchester hit the ground hard, shooting pain through his body. Groaning he ignored the pain and pushed himself up slightly, looking towards the demon that had sent him sprawling. He watched in horror as Crowley spoke the ritual to open the doorway to purgatory. His mind was reeling at what would happen, but he just couldn’t come up with a plan of how to stop Crowley and Raphael. All he could do was wait and watch. Then Crowley finished… and nothing happened. Dean couldn’t believe it. Had something gone wrong? They couldn’t be that lucky, could they? They never were.

“Maybe I said it wrong,” Dean heard Crowley say, just before the scenery changed. Dean blinked in surprise, then noticed Sam a few feet away. Behind him stood Castiel. Bobby was there, too. Crowley and Raphael however were nowhere to be seen.

“What happened?” Bobby asked.

“I tricked them,” Castiel answered. “And did the ritual myself.”

Dean stared at the man – angel – he had considered to be his best friend… his family. Part of him still couldn’t believe that Castiel would work with Crowley, try to get more powerful by stealing souls or that he would actually open a doorway to purgatory. It was simply insane. Up until now he still had had hope that Cas would come around in the end.

“And it worked?” Bobby asked, sounding as if he wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to hear the answer.

“In a way,” Castiel said evasively.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Dean snapped, then sighed and tried to get a grip on his temper. If it did work Castiel would be even more powerful than he already was. Pissing him off probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

“I opened the doorway and started consuming souls… then something went wrong,” Castiel answered.

“Something went wrong?” Dean asked, sounding incredulous. Of course something went wrong. You opened a freaking door into freaking purgatory, he added in thoughts. ‘I told you so’ was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it. Now was not the time for that.

“Yes. It is why I brought you here,” Castiel answered.

“What happened?” Sam asked, sounding strained. 

Dean glanced at his brother, feeling concerned. He looked like hell, but he guessed it was to be expected if you started to remember being in hell. That Sam was even conscious was a miracle. He had been out cold when Dean and Bobby left to try and stop Castiel and Crowley.

“I am not sure. I think opening a way to purgatory affected other… doorways,” Castiel explained. “The walls between realms are weakening.”

“And that means?” Bobby asked.

“Worlds are colliding. Unless the doorway to purgatory is closed the world we know may cease to exist.”

Fantastic, Dean thought sarcastically. Of course something like that had to happen! “Then what the hell are you waiting for? Close the damn door,” Dean almost shouted.

“I… can’t. I am doing everything I can to keep the worlds from merging,” Castiel said through gritted teeth, and for the first time Dean noticed that the angel looked almost as terrible as Sam. 

“What can we do to help?” Sam asked. Dean had to give it to his brother, no matter how horrible he felt, he was still able to focus on what was important. He was definitely better at it than Dean himself. His first instinct right now was to yell at Castiel, but, like Sam had obviously already realized, what good would that do?

“There is a ritual to close…” Castiel started, then groaned and sank down to his knees.

“What ritual?” Bobby asked desperately. “You have to tell us.”

“It is in the book…” Castiel answered and gestured towards a table standing in the corner of the room.

Bobby quickly hurried over to the book, then the whole room started to shake, the ground broke open, leaving gashes everywhere, and Castiel cried out in pain.

“Cas!” Dean called and knelt down beside his friend. He might be majorly pissed at him, but right now his concern was even bigger. “Just hold on,” he muttered before looking up again. “Bobby, what the hell is taking so long?” He looked around, but couldn’t see the older hunter anywhere. What surprised him even more though was the fact that half the room they were in was missing, too. It looked like it had been… ripped off?

“What just happened?” Sam asked, staring at the missing part of the room. “It just disappeared from one second to the next… all of it, the walls, the floor, the ceiling… and everything in that part of the room, including Bobby.”

Dean stared at his brother. “What do you mean? And how is that even possible?” he demanded to know. The room hadn’t collapsed in the earthquake or been blasted apart by something. There was no rubble or broken walls in that part of the building. It was simply gone. “It must have gone somewhere. Bobby…” He broke off, not even wanting to acknowledge that Bobby was gone and might be dead. 

“I am sorry… so sorry,” Castiel said, voice sounding weak. “It is my fault. I could not hold it any longer.”

“You couldn’t hold what any longer?” Dean demanded.

Before Castiel had a chance to answer, the room, or rather what was left of it, started to shake violently again.

“We have to get out of here,” Sam called.

“Right,” Dean said. Questions would have to wait until later, even if he was dying to know what the hell was going on. He quickly grabbed Castiel and helped him up, but the angel’s knees buckled almost as soon as he was standing. “Come on, Cas, you have to help me. I can’t carry you.” 

Dean had barely finished his last word when Sam was by their side. They both put Castiel’s arms around their shoulders, then headed towards the missing wall. There was no other way out. The door must have been in the missing part of the room. 

“You think it’s safe to walk out this way?” Dean asked.

“No idea,” Sam answered. “Looks safe enough to me.” There was nothing smoldering or anything. “Besides, it beats staying in an already unstable building during an earthquake.”

Dean wasn’t convinced. “Hold on a sec,” he muttered, grabbed something from a nearby shelf and threw it through the hole in the room. It fell to the ground on the other side without incident. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Dean,” Sam said once they stepped outside and gestured at a tree next to them.

“What?” Dean asked. 

“It’s a tree, Dean. And it looks like it’s been here for a while,” Sam replied.

“So?” Dean narrowed his eyes. Why did Sam care about a stupid tree? They were in the middle of an earthquake, Bobby was missing and Castiel had done who knew how much damage while opening freaking purgatory! A tree was the last of his worries right now.

“If that tree had been here five minutes ago it would have had to be growing inside the room,” Sam pointed out.

“What?” Dean asked and glanced at the tree again. “There was no tree inside the building. You must be wrong.”

“I know that there was no tree inside the room,” Sam muttered. “Which is why this is weird.”

“We have a whole crapload of problems, Sammy, and we deal with weird every day. Just ignore the fucking tree and let’s go!”

Sam sighed, but complied. They made a few more steps away from the building, then the shaking of the ground grew too strong for them to stay on their feet.

As they sank to the ground Dean looked around, then his eyes widened. Something was heading straight for them, and not just one of whatever the hell that was.

“Cas… any chance that something escaped out of purgatory while you were trying to eat your souls?” Dean asked through gritted teeth while looking around for anything that could be used as a weapon.


	2. Buffyverse

**Buffy-Verse:**

“Buffy, we have to talk about this sooner or later,” Angel said. 

“Oh, now you do want to talk about it?” Buffy asked sounding incredulous. “Maybe we should have talked about it before you made the decision to turn back time and become a vampire again?” she suggested while trying to get a grip on her temper. She still couldn’t believe what Angel had done and kept from her all these years. If she hadn’t lost her memory due to some demonic ritual, Willow wouldn’t have had to restore her memories magically, and she probably never would have accidentally remembered what happened in LA. And Angel never would have told her. Anger rushed through her once more. How could he have kept something like that from her? And how could he have gone to the ‘Powers That Be’ to be turned back into a vampire? All they ever wanted was to find a way for him to become human again so they could finally be together. Or maybe that was just her own stupid wishful thinking. Apparently Angel didn’t want that at all.

“Buffy…”

“What?” Buffy snapped, turned and faced Angel, her face full of anger and hurt.

“Maybe you could talk about this later?” Faith suggested while walking past them, then quickly stepped further away when Buffy glared at her.

“Just saying…” she muttered. “We’re after a bunch of demons after all.”

Dawn linked arms with Faith and quickly steered her friend away. “Trust me, never get involved in Buffy’s issues when she is this mad.”

Faith glanced at Dawn, feeling a little startled. Even though she and Dawn had become close over the past years, especially after she secretly started training Dawn behind Buffy’s back, she still hadn’t gotten used to Dawn treating her like a friend. Dawn was so casual about it, as if it was completely natural that they were friends. It was weird, considering what Faith had done in the past. Yes, she had started to make amends and turned her life around, but nothing could ever truly make up for what she had done… at least not in her own eyes. She would never be able to forget about it. Maybe others, especially Dawn, didn’t have that much trouble forgetting… or forgiving. It might not be about forgetting at all. Maybe it was simply that Dawn had forgiven her. She didn’t think she deserved that, but she liked the thought anyway, and she liked having friends. She finally really did have friends she realized in that moment. She was no longer just sticking around to make up for her past, she actually liked being with Dawn, Willow, Xander, and even Buffy. Not that she and Buffy were friends. That probably would never happen, but Dawn, Willow and Xander treated her like a real friend now. A smile appeared on Faith’s face at the realisation.

“What are you smiling about?” Dawn asked. “This isn’t funny. In this kind of mood Buffy even scares me!”

Faith chuckled slightly, then glanced at Buffy. Yeah, definitely scary. She didn’t want to be in Angel’s place. She didn’t really know what exactly he did, but Buffy was majorly pissed.

“If she pulls out a stake I’m stepping in,” Faith muttered.

It was Dawn’s time to chuckle. “Come on, she wouldn’t. It’s Angel after all.” No matter how many boyfriends Buffy had and no matter how often she claimed not to be in love with Angel anymore, Dawn was sure that Buffy never actually got over him. The thought of her staking him was ridiculous.

“Do you have any idea what is going on between them?” Fred asked walking up beside Dawn and Faith.

“I do,” Willow answered when the two shook their heads. Joining the other women she was about to tell them what happened when she restored Buffy’s memories yesterday, but something else caught her attention. Something… felt… wrong. She held up her hand to stop the others, then started to expand her senses magically. That was when Fred turned into Illyria and snapped to attention. The ancient demon must have sensed something, too, and decided to take over.

“Something is… wrong,” Illyria stated looking around carefully.

Faith narrowed her eyes and looked around again. Her slayer senses started to tingle. Something was indeed up. “The demons?” she asked. They had gone out to hunt demons after all… before Buffy and Angel turned this evening into a bit of a soap opera.

“No,” Willow and Illyria said at the same time. Then several demons rushed at them from different directions.

“You were saying?” Faith asked while pulling out two knives and kicking one of the demons in the chest.

“Something else is happening,” Illyria insisted while breaking the neck of a demon as if it was a tiny stick.

“Keep them away from me, I have to stop this,” Willow called.

“Stop what?” Faith asked glancing at Willow who started to look all wicked. Wind was building around her, then the ground suddenly started to shake.

“What are you doing?” Dawn asked staring at Willow.

“Trying to stop this…” Willow called, then she was suddenly gone.

“What… Willow?” Dawn called while trying to stay on her feet and keep an eye on the demons. Luckily they were affected by the earthquake as well. And there were less of them around all of a sudden, too. About half of the demons had simply disappeared, just like Willow… and Illyria.

“Willow! Illyria!” Faith called. Then the shaking finally stopped.

“What the hell is going on?” Buffy called after beheading a demon with her scythe. Angel killed another demon next to her.

“I don’t kn…” Faith’s words stopped suddenly.

Dawn turned to where Faith had been a second ago. There was nothing. The demons who had been closest to her where gone as well, and another earthquake had started.

“Dawn, get over here,” Buffy called and pulled her sister close. People were disappearing into thin air. She had no idea what was going on, but she’d be damned if she let Dawn disappear as well.

“Buffy where did they go?” Dawn asked, feeling rather scared. A bunch of demons she could handle. They came prepared. Faith had been training her for years now, as had Willow. She could handle herself in a fight and could do enough magic to protect herself if needed. But disappearing people and mysterious earthquakes? How did you fight that?

“I don’t know, Dawn,” Buffy stated while trying to stay on her feet.

“Willow said something before she disappeared, didn’t she?” Angel asked. He had been busy arguing with Buffy, but he was sure he heard Willow call something.

“She said she had to stop something,” Dawn answered. “It seemed more important to her than the demons.”

“I’m guessing it had something to do with disappearing people,” Buffy said sarcastically.

“And I’m guessing she didn’t manage to stop it,” Angel added just as another group of demons disappeared into thin air.

\----- -----

About twenty minutes later the earthquakes finally stopped. The remaining two demons fled as soon as the ground stopped shaking.

“Is it over?” Dawn asked silently from where she was sitting on the ground.

“I hope so,” Buffy answered while getting up and looking around. Growing up in California she was used to earthquakes, but this was awful. The ground had broken up in a lot of places. A street lantern had fallen down and was partly stuck inside a hole in the ground. 

“Buffy,” Angel said and gestured to their left, interrupting her observation of their surroundings.

Buffy looked to where he was pointing, but couldn’t make anything out in the dark. The remaining street lamps weren’t bright enough for a human to see as far as a vampire could.

“Come on,” Angel said and started to walk.

Buffy quickly grabbed his arm and held him back. “We’re staying together… very closely,” she stated. “I’m not having you two disappear on me as well.”

Dawn quickly nodded and took Buffy’s hand. If they stayed hand in hand they could only disappear together, right? And if she disappeared she sure as hell wanted Buffy right by her side.

Buffy gave Dawn a reassuring smile, or what she hoped looked reassuring, and squeezed her hand slightly. Then she saw Angel take Dawn’s other hand. Buffy looked at him and nodded, thankful. If they walked around hand in hand in the hopes of not getting separated she wanted Dawn in the middle where she and Angel could try and protect her if anything attacked. Angel seemed to understand her perfectly. Why could he understand her so well in situations like this and then do something so stupid in others? If he understood her he had to know how much his actions would have hurt her, didn’t he? Buffy sighed and pushed that thought away. Now was not the time to think about what Angel had done years ago. They had other things to worry about.

Dawn rolled her eyes at Buffy and Angel when they obviously decided to keep her in the middle like a little child. She wasn’t a child anymore, and could protect herself very well by now. But being strong and powerful hadn’t helped Willow, Illyria and Faith either. She swallowed, not even wanting to think about what happened to them. They couldn’t be dead, could they?

Angel started walking and led them closer to a block of buildings. “There,” he said soon and pointed at a building with his free hand.

Buffy looked at the building. It was damaged, probably because of the earthquake. Next to her Dawn let go of her hand and pulled something out of her jacket pocket. Buffy quickly grabbed her arm to stay in contact. Then Dawn turned on a flashlight and shone it at the building. Buffy’s eyes widened, now realizing what Angel had seen. They weren’t just looking at a damaged building, they were looking at two different damaged buildings that were somehow meshed together. One was blue and one green. The houses looked similar, but they definitely weren’t the same. It looked like someone had cut two houses in halves and mixed one half of each together.

“What the hell?” Dawn asked staring at the house.

“Exactly my thoughts,” Buffy mumbled. What could have possibly caused this? If Willow were here she might have an idea, but Willow was gone… no, she wasn’t gone, like in dead. She disappeared, but that didn’t mean she was dead. Buffy refused to believe that Willow could just die like that. Taking a deep breath Buffy tried to push that thought away. Thinking about Willow or Faith and Fred was not a good idea either. She had to focus!

“There are more houses like this…” Angel started, but was interrupted by an ear piercing scream of something that definitely couldn’t be human. Then gun shots erupted.

“Let’s go,” Buffy decided and they all started to run.


	3. World 1

Dean watched as two of the weird creatures rushing towards them collapsed when Sam shot them. Thank god his brother still had a gun. He had lost all his weapons when Crowley and Raphael threw him around the room earlier. Unfortunately the rest of the creatures seemed to be rather good at ducking bullets.

Pushing himself up off the ground Dean spotted a branch nearby. It was better than nothing, he decided, and quickly went to get it, avoiding the holes in the ground as best he could. Picking up the branch Dean straightened, then found himself face to face with one of the creatures. It had purplish, scaly skin, smelled rather rotten and was smiling down at him. How the hell had it moved that fast? Without another thought he hit it with his branch. The creature blocked the blow with one of its four hands and… laughed. Chills went down Dean’s back at the sound of the creatures laugh. Then the laughing stopped all of a sudden, the creatures eyes widened and it stilled. The next second its head rolled to the side and fell to the ground; a moment later the rest of the body followed. Behind the now dead creature stood a tiny blond woman holding a huge axe. She grinned at him, then swung her axe and split the chest of another creature open. Dean couldn’t help but be impressed.

“You wouldn’t happen to have another one of those?” he asked pointing at her axe.

“Sorry,” Buffy replied, but pulled a knife out instead. “This’ll have to do.” She handed the man the knife before getting back to fighting whatever kind of demons they were facing. Luckily the guy seemed to know how to use a knife, as she noticed when he joined the fight. 

When Buffy went to help one of the men facing a demon and Angel rushed to the guy on the ground Dawn went to help the third man. He might have a gun, but he would run out of bullets sooner or later, and by the looks of the demons they were majorly pissed at him for shooting at them. Pulling two knives out of her boots she threw them at the demons, who luckily had their backs to her and were too focused on the stranger to even notice her. A grin appeared on her face when she hit both of her targets. Unfortunately they didn’t go down but instead turned to her, looking menacing. 

“There’s more where those came from,” she told them, trying to look tough and confident. Then she quickly pulled out two more knives. In the time that took her one of the demons rushed towards her. Dawn blinked and stared up at it. Wow, those demons were fast. 

The demon sneered down at Dawn and threw the knife it had apparently pulled out of its back away. Then one of its hands shot out almost too quickly for Dawn to see it and grabbed her by the throat. Squeezing slightly it lifted her off the ground. Not hesitating for a second Dawn used the knives in her hands to saw into the demons hand. It dropped her like a hot potato and screamed.

Coughing slightly Dawn tried to breathe regularly, then threw one of the knives at the demon, who was still busy holding its hand and screaming. Apparently being cut in the hand was a bigger deal than a knife in the back. One in the stomach seemed bad as well, Dawn noticed delightedly when the demon sank to the ground. She smiled, satisfied. Unfortunately another demon took the dead ones place as soon as it hit the ground. Dawn gripped her knife tightly and started to wonder what kind of spells might work best against these demons. She could set them on fire. She had learned how to conjure up fire last week. However, before she had a chance to try that another shot sounded and the demon dropped to the ground. Dawn turned to her right and saw the man she had helped smile at her. Wow, he was gorgeous… and tall.

“Thanks for the help,” Sam said looking at the young woman. He had never seen her before, but she had to be a hunter if the way she took on and killed that creature was anything to go by.

“Any time,” Dawn called and smiled back, feeling rather self conscious all of a sudden. She probably looked terrible after falling down a number of times during the earthquake.

“Dawn!”

Hearing Buffy’s shout Dawn spun around and saw a demon coming directly towards her almost too fast to see it. On instinct she pulled up her knife and the demon ran directly into it. Wailing terribly it sank to the ground. Dawn took a step back and sucked in a breath. Wow, that had been close.

“You okay?” 

Dawn looked up startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the hot stranger.

“Fine,” she mumbled looking at him, then Buffy was by her side, which was a good thing. She probably had been staring like a lovesick teenager. 

“I guess I should thank Faith for training you after all,” Buffy said while looking her sister up and down. She seemed uninjured. Good.

“Told you so,” Dawn said with a grin. “But we have to find her first.”

“Yeah”, Buffy said uneasily. Hopefully there was a Faith left to be found.

“You alright, Sammy?” Dean asked stepping next to the two women.

Sam looked at his brother. Alright? He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be alright again. “Uninjured, if that’s what you mean,” he answered. “I’ll get back to you about the rest.”

Dean winced. Alright had probably been the wrong choice of word. How alright could you be after having been in hell? He should know better than to ask that, since he had been there himself.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” he amended.

“Cas?” Sam asked, trying to change the subject.

“Over there, with their friend,” Dean said gesturing to his left, then he turned to the women. “Thanks for the help. You didn’t come a second too soon.” He grinned while checking them out properly. They obviously were hunters, and both rather hot in addition. He liked them already.

Seeing Dean’s look Sam groaned, which made Dean look at him concerned. He rolled his eyes.

Buffy smirked amused when the guy she had helped and fought with checked her out. She however didn’t much like him checking Dawn out. He was too old for her! And no, she didn’t care if she was a hypocrite. Angel was too old for any human, so he certainly didn’t count!

“Everyone okay?” Angel asked joining them and helping a still weak Castiel to stay on his feat.

“Yeah,” Dean answered before looking at Cas. “So, wanna talk about your brilliant plan to open purgatory now?”

Castiel winced.

“Purgatory?” Dawn asked surprised and shocked. “Why would you want to open purgatory?”

“What’s purgatory?” Buffy asked.

“Some kind of hell dimension as far as I know,” Dawn answered. She had read about it once during her watcher training. “Everything nasty you can imagine goes there after they die.”

Buffy groaned. “Great.” She turned to the strangers. “And you want to open a portal to it or something?” The tone of her voice relayed perfectly how she felt about the mere thought of that.

“He already did,” Dean muttered, not bothering to correct the hell comment. Purgatory wasn’t hell, but it was close enough in his opinion, and they didn’t have time for semantics right now.

“What?” Buffy, Dawn and Angel asked at the same time.

Castiel looked down, feeling more ashamed than he ever had in his long life as an angel.

“This was not what was supposed to happen,” he said silently.

Dean swallowed the ‘I told you so’ once more. Answers were more important than accusations and taunting right now. “What exactly did happen?”

Castiel took a deep breath, then answered. “Opening a doorway to purgatory affected other doorways. The walls between worlds weakened. I tried to stop it and close the doorways, but was not strong enough.”

Dean swallowed. He had a feeling that he didn’t really want to hear what Castiel said next. It had to be bad, especially when an angel who consumed who knew how many souls when opening purgatory couldn’t stop it.

“Worlds started to collide.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean by that? What worlds?”

“Universes, realities,” Castiel answered. “There is an infinite number of different realities. They are separate from each other and never interact… under normal circumstances.”

“But now they did?” Dawn asked.

Castiel nodded. “After the collision they started merging. I think… that several realities have started to bleed into each other.”

“Like the house,” Dawn muttered.

“What?” Sam and Dean asked.

“There was a house… or better two halves of different houses, somehow put together… merged. They came from different realities, didn’t they?

“It is possible,” Castiel said.

“That’s where the tree came from,” Sam pointed out. “Another reality.”

“Enough with the stupid tree,” Dean said with a groan. “What I am more concerned about is what reality the rest of the room we were in went to.” Bobby had been in that part after all.

“So, this collision, how bad is it?” Buffy wanted to know. 

“Big,” Castiel answered.

“And it caused the earthquakes… and people disappearing?” Dawn asked.

“People disappearing? Like Bobby,” Dean butted in.

Castiel looked thoughtful for a moment. “The earthquakes are certainly a result of the collision. People disappearing… they might have been… misplaced. When realities bled into each other parts of one reality shoved into another, like with the house you described. If someone was on a part of one world that ended up in another world they would have…”

“… been taken to the other world as well,” Buffy finished.

“Yes,” Castiel confirmed.

Dean sighed. He didn’t like the thought of Bobby being stuck in some alternate reality, but at least he was probably still alive.

“So, Faith, Willow and Fred are in another reality?” Dawn asked, sounding relieved. “That means they aren’t dead.”

“That is my assumption,” Castiel said.

“Assumption?” Dean asked sounding incredulous. “You’re a freaking angel, and you caused all of this. A bit more than an assumption would be nice. Bobby is okay, right?”

“I am certain that he is,” Castiel answered, but Dean had the feeling that the angel wasn’t as sure as he claimed to be.

“If anything happened to him I am holding you responsible.”

Castiel sighed and looked down. “I know this is my fault,” he said silently. “I am sorry, Dean.”

Buffy snorted. Sorry? The guy caused worlds to collide… sorry didn’t really cut it in her opinion. “Why would you try to open purgatory at all? I mean, I get that you didn’t want the mess that happened, but opening purgatory sounds like a really, really bad idea to me,” she said, trying not to sound as pissed and annoyed as she felt.

“That’s what we said,” Dean pointed out. “But someone thought they knew better.” Despite his efforts Dean didn’t manage to keep the hurt and annoyance out of his voice.

“I always knew it was a bad idea,” Castiel admitted. “I simply did not have a better one for how to stop Raphael from starting the apocalypse all over again.”

Hearing the word apocalypse Buffy groaned. “Not another one.”

Dawn elbowed her sister in the side. “So, you stopped someone from starting an apocalypse and almost caused another one?” she asked. “It was an ‘almost’, right? I mean, the earthquakes stopped, so we are out of immediate danger now, aren’t we?”

“The worlds have stopped merging, yes,” Castiel said. He wasn’t sure why or how, but he could feel that the damage wasn’t getting any worse.

“I guess that’s something,” Dean said before turning to the younger woman. “He wasn’t talking about an apocalypse, by the way. He meant THE apocalypse.” Seeing their blank looks he added: “In a biblical sense.”

“Oh,” Dawn said. “That would be bad, I guess.” She hadn’t read the whole bible. There was always something else she needed to read, some other kind of apocalypse to avert. She did know that that kind of apocalypse would be very bad though.

Dean smirked slightly. “Not much of a bible reader, are we?”

Buffy and Dawn shrugged. “That book’s big,” Buffy pointed out. She was more the slaying type anyway, and slayers had watchers to read.

“So, you were trying to stop the apocalypse, but instead caused worlds to collide,” Angel summed it up. “Did you at least manage to avoid the apocalypse?” He really didn’t want to have to deal with a biblical apocalypse on top of this whole mess. Having been raised in a catholic family he knew all too well what that kind of apocalypse would entail.

“No,” Castiel admitted. “But with the worlds colliding Raphael is probably too busy to start the apocalypse right now.”

“Great,” Buffy muttered. “Just great.” Why could her life never get any easier? Instead it went from bad to worse to… a lot worse. And that in multiple realities.

“Tell me you at least have a plan to fix this mess,” she said.

“Fix it?” Castiel asked. “How?”

“Get everyone back where they belong, and if possible get the misplaced parts of worlds back, too,” Buffy elaborated.

“I do not know if that is possible,” Castiel admitted. 

“You mean the worlds stay like this? Our friends are gone?” Buffy asked.

“I did not say that. I just do not know if it is possible.”

Buffy sighed. Apparently she would have to find a way to do the impossible yet again. Just another day in the life of a slayer…

**Author's Note:**

> **book cover fanart:**


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